


Finley's Aftermath

by SilkenTiger091



Category: Masks: A New Generation (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: AM I STARTING A TAG FOR MY OWN OC? YES, Also yes, Gen, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, Referenced Kidnapping, Referenced murder, Superhero OC, Superheroes, Supervillians, now for the actual tags I guess, sue me, those are JJBA references, what can I say my GM likes the show and I think the references are cool even if I don't get them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-06 23:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19072960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilkenTiger091/pseuds/SilkenTiger091
Summary: The first thing Finley Sofia Camila Mariana Santiago thought she’d do when she was finally free was go to a local park, and then jump into the first pond she could find, simply because she could and because she also missed being able to swim.The first thing Finley Sofia Camila Mariana Santiago ended up doing after she was finally free, however, was curl up in the tiny bathroom of a local police station and cry.AKA: Finley Santiago has escaped the clutches of her supervillian captors after seven years of experimentation. Now, she's got to see if there's anything left for her on the outside. A series of short storyish things that go more into more depth into Finley's backstory.





	Finley's Aftermath

The first thing Finley Sofia Camila Mariana Santiago thought she’d do when she was finally free was go to a local park, and then jump into the first pond she could find, simply because she could and because she also missed being able to swim. 

The first thing Finley Sofia Camila Mariana Santiago ended up doing after she was finally free, however, was curl up in the tiny bathroom of a local police station and cry. She had stumbled in, after she was gently steered towards it by one of the officers who told her to go in and clean herself up. She had a basic first aid kit pushed into her hands and then the door shut behind her, and for the first time since escaping from her cell Finley was alone.

She had gone about cleaning her face as best as she could, wiping off the dust and blood left over from her fight, and bandaging the numerous cuts and scrapes that littered her skin. The whole process had been horribly silent- the restroom was located near the back of the station, although she knew that there was a hive of confused activity caused by her own escape towards the front. The only noise within the room was the subtle, high-pitched whine of the fluorescent lights above her. She stood there, leaning over the sink staring at her reflection as she listened to the persistent, shrill noise of the lights. It was a deeply familiar noise to her, one that she had listened to for the past seven years. There had been fluorescent lights in her cell, in the labs, in the testing chambers, the hallways, and in every other corner of the lair that Dr. Oblivion kept Finley trapped in. The noise of the lights had only been quieted when it was time for her to sleep, and then she could see the tiny red dot of the security camera in the corner of her cell, watching her like the eye of some unholy demon throughout the night. Seven years she had slept under the gaze of that camera, and not once did she feel safe. Then, the next day would come, the lights would switch on, and that sharp noise would be back in the air.

Finley stood in the bathroom of the police station, absorbed in that noise, and suddenly what she wanted more than anything else in the world was for it to stop. She clenched the edge of the sink with white knuckles, eyeing the lights above her. The recent memories of the lab flooded through her mind, and suddenly she felt horribly nauseous. Her head spun, and she gripped the sink harder in an attempt to stay upright. Finley breathed heavily, trying to get herself to focus as her vision swam. There was a sudden cracking. Finley stared blankly at the mirror for a moment until she looked down. In her hands, the sink had cracked into several pieces of porcelain. Finley let go, and realized that her hands were shaking. 

She had roared with anger and pain, then. Dr. Oblivion was the one who had done this to her, who had done all of this to her. Finley punched into the wall with her fist until she had found the switch and the lights flickered off. Then Finley crumpled to the floor, sobbing, holding her knees to her chest and curling up in the darkness by the door. She found suddenly that she was scared, almost more scared than the day her parents had been killed, as the reality of her situation hit her. 

She had no parents, no home, no education- those things had all been taken from her by Dr. Oblivion. She wasn’t even normal anymore. He had taken that from her too, turned her into some kind of freak with strength too great to even function normally in society. It had taken her seven years to escape, seven years of experimentation and testing all while wondering whether anybody had even bothered to look for her. She wasn’t even a kid anymore. In a little under a year, she’d be eighteen and then legally on her own. Finley was completely, utterly, alone.

After a while, a discussion outside the bathroom came near. The people outside the door spoke quietly for a moment. Then the door creaked open and someone walked inside the bathroom. Finley curled in on herself, pressing her face harder into her knees. She couldn’t bear to lift her face to even look at whoever had entered after her. There was a horrible shame curling in her chest, a quiet voice that seemed to be telling her that she was supposed to be stronger than this, that she was supposed to be gloating in her victory and laughing in the face of both Dr. Oblivion and King Crimson. Instead, she just felt like she was either going to throw up or pass out if she even tried to stand up. Here she was now, being stared at by a complete stranger who either thought she was being stupid or pitied her. Finley wasn’t sure which was worse.

Still, to some extent Finley just expected the person to use the restroom and just leave. Instead, they sat down in front of her. She steeled herself inwardly. Whoever this was, they were here to talk to her.

“Hey.” The voice was calm, almost casual, but friendly. 

There was a long stretch of silence where Finley tried to get her breathing under control and failed. She kept her face buried in her hands and knees, even though she knew that she was probably being watched like some kind of freak because of it. It was such a simple thing to just lift her head up and look this person in the eye.

“Do you mind if I speak with you for a moment?” 

She stirred slightly at that. The question caught her off guard. Looking up, she saw that sitting in front of her was an older woman. Her hair was half put up in a messy bun, the rest of it falling into her face, and her eyes were sunken and tired behind her glasses. She was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants, and it suddenly occurred to Finley that at this point it was probably getting late, and whoever this was had been recently woken up to come to the station. She stared blankly at the woman, and she looked patiently back at her. Finally, Finley nodded slowly.

“You’re Finley Santiago, yes? Is it okay if I call you that?” Another nod. “Alright, Finley. I am Kellen McNamara, I’m a counselor. I have some questions for you, but I’m also here to answer your questions. If you’re not comfortable with any of them, you don’t have to answer.”

“Where’s King Crimson?” The question was out of her before she had even knew she was asking it. Her voice wavered. “He’s not- Is he gone?”

“King Crimson’s already in custody, thanks to you and the other kids on the scene. He’s under full police escort until he’s safely contained, and we’ve got some powerful supers keeping an eye on you for now. You don’t have to worry about him.”

“And Dr. Oblivion?”

“We’re using some of the information we found looking through the rubble to try and locate him right now. He’ll be arrested as soon as we find him, and in the meantime you’re being guarded.”

Finley released a shaky breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. Part of her still felt like at any moment she would be dragged back to her cell, but the knowledge that King Crimson was being collared and dragged to a cell was more comforting than she thought it would be. She glanced down and saw that her hands were still covered in plaster and debris still littered the floor. She frowned, clenching and unclenching her fists. Suddenly she was sore, and very tired. She glanced back up at Kellen.

“...What’s going to happen to me?” She asked, voice barely loud enough to be heard.

“Well, tonight we’re going to the hospital. We want to make sure you’re not injured after this afternoon, and we just want to make sure your general health is okay. You’ll probably stay there for a few days while we work out your paperwork and figure out a living situation for you.”

“We?”

“I’m going to be in touch with you the whole time, to make sure you’re doing alright. I’ll be walking you through the whole process, and what comes after that. But now, I think you should go to the hospital. Is that okay?”

“Yeah- it’s just-” Finley took a deep, shuddering breath as she felt tears well up in her eyes again. “I just- I just don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Kellen sighed, and Finley was startled for a moment when she leaned forward and rested her hand on Finley’s knee. 

“I know. And that’s okay. My job is to help you, Finley, and we’re going to figure it out. I know everything feels overwhelming to you right now and that it’s hard to process it all, but you’re going to be okay. For tonight, my job is to make sure you feel safe and comfortable while we get everything else sorted out. And I’m going to be there to make sure you feel safe no matter what happens next. You’re not going to be going through this alone.”

“Alright.” Finley said, finally wiping her face dry. “Let’s… Let’s just go, then.”

Kellen stood, and offered a hand for Finley to pull herself up with. Finley numbly followed her out of a quiet back door of the police station, away from the noise and chaos of the reporters hanging around outfront. There was an ambulance waiting for them, and an EMT draped a blanket around her shoulders then helped her in the back. As Kellen and the EMTs climbed in behind her, she glanced out the back. The entire city seemed to be alive with lights and people, even at this point in the night, and above it all was the perfect darkness of the sky. Finley leaned back and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. 

She was alone when Dr. Oblivion murdered her parents. She was alone when she was dragged to her cell for the first time. She was alone for seven years of experiments. But Finley wasn’t alone now.


End file.
